


What Makes a House a Home

by Notsohappycamper



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Forced Relationship, M/M, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 17:55:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5137202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notsohappycamper/pseuds/Notsohappycamper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn't go as either of them planned, but Eddie makes the best of a bad situation, and Waylon just tries to stay grounded.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Makes a House a Home

He falls.

As Waylon rips the frayed noose from around his neck and wraps a bloody hand around his camera, as he takes deep breaths and tries not to laugh from the joy of being free, from the irony of it all, from the _fuck_ him, Lisa, I fucking got him, I _got_  that sick fuck, baby- there is a choking gasp and a jarring crash from behind him that shakes his very soul.

A groan. A sob.

He should have flinched, jumped, dropped his camera, anything really, but his body only freezes. Wet gasps and squelching noises arrest his ears and ice the blood in his veins. He peeks, slow, over his shoulder at the man laying and bleeding on the wood behind him.

He fell.

The metal pole had only grazed his side, sliced a large chunk out of it, but not enough to kill a man.

He fell.

He survived.

He curls up into a ball, gloved hands clutching his right side, and whimpers into the floorboards, as Waylon turns around fully, stands still, and watches it all.

The wound on his calf pulses with pain in the back of his mind. The camera slips from his hand like it’s a wet piece of paper, and his body soon thuds onto the ground right along with it.

He just sits and stares.

There are plenty of sharp objects laying around. He could do it. End it. Finish this.

Face to the wood, Eddie growls and sniffles as he struggles to sit upright. Just one poke in the throat would do it. Right?

Waylon’s hand reaches out, slowly, because he’s literally in a room with a wild, wounded animal, his fingers wrapping around a long, thick sliver of wood and lifting it up.

With his eyes glued to the other, he sits, holding that wood for a long, long time.

He’s dying. Has to be.

He’s losing blood at an alarming rate.

When he manages to push himself to his knees and growls, eyes pinning Waylon down like a moth to a cork board, he tumbles to his side instantly - his injured one - and starts dry sobbing all over again.

Waylon’s palm is littered with splinters by now. He had held that wood, rolling it around in his hand and worrying it, for far too long. Thinking this over for far too long. Sitting by Eddie like a doting nurse with the lethal injection ready to go.

For some reason, he just can’t keep his eyes off the other. He just can’t leave. He can’t bring himself to kill him, but can’t turn and leave him to bleed out on his own either. If he turns his back, will Eddie get up? Will it just start all over again?

The anxiety over him leaving and Eddie recovering somehow behind his back is so strong it keeps him plastered to the ground right beside the lunatic as he bleeds out. Like if he doesn’t take his eyes off him, there’s no way he could sneak up and strike from the shadows. True, but that guarantee of safety also keeps him planted here, unable to escape.

He’s stuck in a loop he’s created for himself, fueled by dread and fear.

“Bitch...” Eddie finally mumbles out, after what seems like an hour, his voice deep and pained. “You bitch...”

It’s so truly, deeply hurt. Like a faithful man cheated on in a long-term relationship.

Waylon grits his teeth and swallows around the dirty taste in his mouth that he suspects will never wash clean.

He watches as Eddie rolls over onto his side and throws an arm out in his direction, fingers seeking and clawing at the floor. His eyes are like two glowing bullets.

“You want to leave me that much..?” he asks, more of a threat than a question.

When Eddie’s fingertips graze his foot, he scoots back, out of reach, and Eddie moans out his lament, rolling over and throwing an arm over his eyes.

“I loved you,” he groans into his skin, desperate and yearning, and Waylon almost believes him.

He scoffs instead and lets the piece of wood in his hand tumble to the floor. Eddie jolts a bit at the sudden sound, the only other noise they’ve heard aside from his voice, gasps, and sobs for at least an half an hour. With that make-shift murder weapon out of the way, he picks painfully at the splinters in his palm, unfortunately doing more harm than good to them, with his eyes glued to the other.

Bloated corpses sway and rock above them.

“Don’t follow me,” Waylon says, finally. He hasn’t spoken since he got broken out of his cell by that other patient way back when. Since he got his camera. Since this whole mess started. His voice sounds shaky and foreign to his own ears. “Don’t you fucking follow me.”

He has to leave, he realizes. Eddie’s not getting up any time soon. This is his chance, maybe his one and only chance, to escape with his life, and his genitals, intact. He has to go now.

“Don’t fucking follow me,” he mumbles again, distracted by the faint outlines of a Rorschach test that dances in his vision when he blinks. Yeah, he needs to leave. Now.

“No, no, no,” he hears Eddie whispering to himself now, completely lost in his delusions. “You were the special one... You’re different.”

Ignoring the mad words, he picks his camera up from the floor and turns it to Eddie for at least five seconds, capturing his suffering in the moment, before turning and limping away.

“You were the special one!” Eddie calls after him, voice booming in the large room. “You were special!!”

Waylon only pauses for a brief moment to glance back, to make sure Eddie is still writhing on the floor, before pulling himself up into the open vent and crawling away, words echoing after him.

“You were special to me!”

*

“Let’s start a clean slate, darling!”

It’s these words that reach Waylon’s ears from a nearby room and make him jerk so hard sideways into the low table he was squeezing around that he bangs his ribs against it and probably bruises them. He fumbles and almost drops his camera as his heart jump-starts into overdrive, and his feet start pounding towards the nearest doorway.

“Fuck fuck fuck why why fuck why...” He doesn’t stop and think. He can’t. He races into a dark room and slams the door shut, instantly cursing himself for not being quiet about it.

“Come out so we can talk. Let me love you again!”

It’s so dark he can’t see a damn thing - hell, he could have foolishly ran into the room that Eddie was in and didn’t even know - so his fingers grope for the night vision button and click it on, throwing the room into dark green light behind the lens. With no batteries, it doesn’t show him much.

“I forgive you!” Eddie’s voice calls out, lilting and bursting with dangerous charm. “We all make mistakes sometimes.”

He’s in a small bathroom, he discovers, with most of the doors missing from the stalls. He rushes to the one that’s intact and closes the door carefully behind him. Without a latch, it creaks open a bit, giving him a slit to peek out through into the darkness.

The scent of the bathrooms is probably one of the only things that he will never get used to. The seat is coated in dry blood, piss, vomit, maybe feces, maybe a thousand other things he doesn’t want to think about. He squats and hovers in front of it, not willing to touch the mess, but if Eddie dared to peek under and see his legs to make sure he was there, he’d see the illusion of a woman sitting, instead of a man on his hands and knees, and maybe, just maybe, that would make him step out and let “her” finish “her” business. Unfortunately, this squatting position makes his leg burn like it’s on fire.

“Darling? Is everything okay in there? Come out so I can see you.” Eddie’s voice drifts in from beyond the curve of the wall. He already is standing outside the room, it seems. Like a true “gentleman”.

Waylon’s heart begins to race, and he can’t help but breathe heavily through his mouth, staying as still as possible.

Eddie hums in response to the silence, such a content, blissful hum, truly like a joyous man on his wedding day, and it sends Waylon into full panic mode. Like reality just fucked him in the mouth while slapping him silly. ‘He knows you’re in here! Move, you idiot!’

His head cranes back, eyes frantically scanning the ceiling for vents or holes to no avail. Huffing in frustration, he bends down and peeks under the other two stalls, then gets down on his stomach to army-crawl into them and look up for vents above them as well. There is one directly above the toilet of the last stall, but it looks like it’s sealed completely shut and has been for a while. Painted over around the edges and everything.

Eddie starts to sing from outside, footsteps audibly pacing up and down the hallway, and Waylon’s heart pounds, adrenalin starting to flow. Could he run around him? Is he fast enough? He could lure him into the bathroom, then run around him and out the door. Where would he go, though? Where was the fucking way out in this hell?

Childish anger grips him, and he almost starts crying out of pure frustration. Why did he ever let him get this close? Why did he have to sit in that gymnasium and wait? Why did this have to happen to him, and not any of the other sick fucks that were actually responsible for the experiments?!

“Daaarliing,” Eddie sings out a beckon melodically. His voice is slightly strained. It must still hurt him to talk, probably to even breathe.

Waylon flinches at the noise and starts crawling back to his stall, not responding. He picks himself up, wincing at the pain in his leg and settling on the toilet to rest. Fuck it if his clothes got dirty. They were already dirty enough as it was.

“What are you doooiiing?” Eddie sing-songs again, his voice closer this time. Teasing. He’s creeping up on Waylon’s stall, like he’s planning on surprising him.

The fact that he hadn’t heard the groom’s footsteps at all makes him want to crawl into the bloody toilet and drown himself. There really is no way he can get away from this man. He’s just too good at what he does.

“Ah- finishing up!” Waylon blurts out in a moment of panic, hating himself for it. There goes any chance of sneaking by unnoticed.

A low chuckle is his response. Eddie thinks he’s being coy. Shy. He’s terrified.

“Are you decent?”

He doesn’t answer. His hands quake around his camera as he curses his very existence.

Another chuckle. “It’s awfully rude to tease a man this much on his wedding day, darling.” He hears Eddie take a deep sigh before he continues. Dreamy. Wistful. Waylon sighs quietly as well, for entirely different reasons. “Now, I know that you’re a little nervous; any woman would be. Especially after...” The tone of his voice drops as he takes a deep breath. “...what happened.” After a pause, he clears his throat and continues casually. “But I’m here for you, regardless of those silly little mistakes. To complete you... To treat you right. Like I know you’ll do for me in return now. Not like the rest of them.”

A gloved hand reaches up and grabs the top of the latch-less stall, beginning to pull it open. Waylon stands up straight and balls his hand by his side, the other gripping his camera like a life raft, stepping back as close to the toilet as possible.

The smile that spreads across Eddie’s face almost makes his heart ache from the purity of it. Almost.

He says nothing, just reaches in and pulls Waylon out of the stall and into his arms. Waylon stands with his hands at his sides, his mouth pressed against the other man’s shoulder, and quietly shakes in anger, fear, and regret.

Wet blood soaks into the left side of his jumpsuit and stains it dark red.

*

They’re walking together.

Waylon has no clue where, nor how much deeper into the asylum they’re going. He would run, oh, he would run his fucking heart out, but he’d have no idea where to go, probably get cornered somewhere, and who knows if the groom would be willing to forgive him again. Though, he almost killed the man and he instantly forgave him for that, so maybe his odds are better then he thinks. This man is more unstable than he could ever imagine.

Eddie insisted on holding his hand while they walked, threading their fingers together like a regular couple of lovebirds, walking close enough that their shoulders are touching. His footsteps are slow and heavy, his breathing labored.

Waylon thinks for a long time over his words before he speaks up, quietly. “...You’re dying.”

Silence follows, echoing around them, and, for a moment, he fears that Eddie might lash out, but a glance up and to his left confirms only a small, bitter frown. He averts his eyes and looks back at the boarded-up door he could have sworn they'd walked by at least four times now.

“Darling, please,” Eddie huffs out, faint of breath. “Don’t be so morbid on our special day. It’s unbecoming of a lady like yourself.”

After he speaks, he winces and hunches over a bit, clutching at his side. He’s weak, Waylon notes. The half of his brain ravenous for survival is close to pulling his hand free and running for it. The other half that would like to care, even a little for this poor dying soul, for this horribly abused mental patient, foolishly keeps their fingers entwined.

‘Murderer,’ Waylon’s thoughts remind him. ‘Mutilator. Womanizer. Psychopath.’

Eddie’s hand is cool in his. Stable. Firm.

He’s just a human being at the end of the day, though. Right?

Waylon holds Eddie’s hand a little tighter and bites the inside of his lip.

“After all,” Eddie continues, his voice dark and hinting of painful things to come. His captive tenses up. “You’re the one who did this to me...”

His hand suddenly squeezes Waylon’s hard, compressing his bones and driving the splinters from that old piece of wood in the gym deeper into his skin. Waylon’s arm jerks back, a split-second reaction to the pain, but that only serves to make the grip tighter.

“Like you hated me. Like you didn’t care who your _sluttish_ ways hurt. After all I would’ve done for you and our future family!”

A hand comes up to back-hand him, and he manages to duck it, but Eddie just snags him by the front of his jumpsuit and slams him against the nearest wall. He grunts as a jagged piece of wood digs into his shoulder blade, glaring up at the other.

He doesn’t yell back at Eddie, as he would like to - “You tried to hang me, you fucking lunatic!” - but he stays silent, like he’s used to, like he’s good at, and lets Eddie just have this moment. Just say what he wants to and get it over with.

“You skank!”

This time it’s impossible to dodge the slap now, but Waylon would take that any day over the heavy-handed punches Eddie threw his way before they scuffled in the gym. Or after, as Eddie avoidantly called it, “what happened”. He doesn’t know if the insane man is just too physically tired to throw punches like that anymore, or if he really is trying to be some kind of messed up version of “gentle”. Hell, Waylon hardly has room to complain. Or dodge for that matter.

After the slap echos through the room and stings on his cheek, Eddie presses close, so intimately close that it almost sets Waylon’s heart into a panic attack, before simply settling against him and staying still. Chests pressed together, Eddie breathing harshly into his ear. His hands are gripping both of Eddie’s wrists as if to contain him somehow, and he’s not quite sure when that happened.

He doesn’t move again until Eddie does, until the quiet air around them creaks with the shifting wood of the chaotic asylum. Something upstairs falls and hits the ground heavily, reverberating through the plaster and wood. Most likely a body, Waylon thinks, wondering when he stopped being bothered by such noises, by brutal death, by the warmth of a murderer resting against him.

Eddie growls and leans back suddenly at the noise, like he had drifted off before remembering he was supposed to be mad again, yanking his wrists away from Waylon’s hands and reaching up to grab his hair instead.

“You won’t do that to me again, will you, dear?” he grits out, pulling so hard Waylon’s head is yanked back against the wall.

Waylon winces and glares at the ceiling. “...No.”

“You’ll listen this time, _won’t_ you, dear?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll be the only one for me? You won’t make me have to hurt you like this?”

Waylon pauses and swallows, but it does nothing to alleviate the dryness in his mouth. His wound is a dull ache radiating up his leg. “...Yes.”

After a brief silence, the hand not in his hair latches onto his side all of a sudden, groping and searching, and he freezes like a statue, eyes growing wide. Eddie’s disposition changes in the blink of an eye, a deep sigh that drips of sexual gratification slipping from his lips as that seeking hand travels downwards, towards Waylon’s narrow hips. “Oh, yes,” he breathes warmly, right into Waylon’s ear. “You’ll behave for me, won’t you, my little minx...”

Before a disgusted shiver even has time to crawl up his spine, Waylon is already fighting, squirming and wrenching Eddie’s hand off his head, digging into his flesh with short, jagged nails. His elbow finds that sweet spot near Eddie’s ribs, that open, bleeding wound, and, honestly, that’s the only thing that guarantees his safety.

The pain sends Eddie to his knees with a hiss, giving Waylon a chance to back-pedal from him, almost tripping over his own feet as he scoots along the wall. “God,” he gasps out, still backing away and fighting the cruel urge to kick Eddie in the side while he’s down. “What the fuck!”

The groom says nothing, doesn’t even look at him, but leans over onto the ground and pants for breath, holding his side as blood drips to the floor.

For the first time ever, standing over him now, Waylon feels like he has true power in a situation for once, as opposed to the other way around. Now, he is in control.

Eddie had his time, for sure, but now Waylon is nobody’s bitch. He’s nobody’s property. He won’t let himself be. Not anymore. All those times he was punched and beaten by other patients, forced to run away and hide like a rat in the walls. Those times are over. He will defend himself, if he needs to. He can defend himself from Eddie at least.

As exhilarating as his new decree is, as empowering and uplifting, the temporary surge of strength sadly only lasts as long as Eddie is on his knees, and, when he rises, broad shoulders back and lips parting to show his teeth, the confidence drains from Waylon’s body like water down a pipe and a flood of raw fear replaces it.

Thoughts of defending himself thrown to the wind, he promptly turns tail and hobbles as fast as his injured leg can keep up with, which is barely fast enough to get to the nearest door in time. A quick glance back reveals Eddie collapsing against the wall before pushing himself up to walk calmly after his, yet again, runaway bride.

*

They’re connected in such horrible ways.

Of course Waylon knows that.

Through Murkoff. Through sharing the status of a “patient”. They’ve both gone through that same messed up, flashing Morphogenic therapy, that same inhumane treatment, though Waylon is aware he has suffered far less in the short time before the outbreak.

He’s never been in the Morphogenic Engine itself, not like Eddie has, but he had helped to put him in there. He helped get the systems online and primed for Eddie’s arrival. He is absolutely directly responsible.

They’ve been connected from the start, Waylon realizes, and it disturbs him. He just can’t seem to escape the man, even back when he still worked for Murkoff. The way Eddie banged on that thick sheet of glass and begged him to help, insisting he, only he, could stop them.

What ever happened to that man, Waylon thinks to himself now, huddled up in a dark corner and listening hard for footsteps. What ever happened to that man so ravenous for Murkoff’s downfall that he ripped away from his guards, raced up, bare and naked, to the nearest person he could see who wasn’t wearing a company uniform, and pleaded with them to save him. Maybe he and Eddie could have had a happy ending after all, back when he thought the patient was out for Murkoff blood as much as he was. He thought Eddie wanted the same kind of justice he craved for: to see Murkoff exposed and their cruel treatments lead to the death of them.

But what a sour, foul disappointment he found instead. What a damn shame.

Just a middle-aged man so deeply damaged he wasn’t at all right in the head and probably never would be. Just another mentally disturbed patient. Just another psychopath.

Another bump in the night and knife against his spine and threat for his life. Eddie fucking Gluskin.

It’s disturbing, and it makes him want to claw out his insides, but he knows that, in some morbid way, he is just as much obsessed with this patient as this patient is obsessed with him.

He took this job for a reason, after all, and, though his family was struggling with bills, it sure as hell wasn’t 100% for the money. There were plenty other gigs, plenty other companies far less dangerous that he could have hooked up with, but that damn curiosity, that tingle of interest when he first saw the name “Mount Massive Asylum for the Criminally Insane” just took his mind for a cryptic joyride.

‘Insane people?’ he remembers thinking. ‘Criminally insane? Hm. How interesting these people must be. Their ways of thinking must be so bizarre and interesting.’

Yeah. Interesting, alright.

He doesn’t bother to stifle his heavy, pained breathing when he glimpses Eddie’s large form round a corner and double-take in his direction.

‘So fucking interesting.’

“You crazy bitch...” Eddie’s mumbled voice drifts to his ears as the man zeroes in on him from afar.

‘You’re so interesting.’

The dull knife is still gripped tightly in his hand. Waylon sees a nearby light reflect off it, a sharp gleam on its blade.

“I’m done with you,” Eddie breathes out. His voice sounds so much closer to Waylon than it should.

‘Why are you so terribly interesting?’

Waylon forces himself to stand on his injured leg, partially out of fear and partially because he’d rather just meet Eddie, and death, straight in the eyes. Like a man.

“You’re not fucking special!” the patient spits, getting closer.

‘Is it because you’re not like me?’

Waylon’s breathing echos into the hallway.

‘Is it because you’re not like anyone I’ve ever met?’

His heart feels like it’s going to explode in his chest.

‘Because you think in dreams and illusions?’

He foolishly lifts his camera up to record the black silhouette of his attacker, the burned out batteries unable to truly capture his form in the dark.

‘Because your reality is what you make it?’

Eddie steps close and reaches out. “Nobody loves you! You’ll never have children!”

‘Or because you are what reality has made?’

The camera is snatched out of his hand and thrown against the nearest wall. Waylon hears the casing crack when it hits the floor and winces like he was physically hurt as well.

“I gave you... so many chances...” Eddie starts, hot breath puffing onto his face. He’s panting like he just sprinted a marathon. “And you still! Won’t! Fucking!”

A startled cry is ripped from Waylon’s throat when Eddie stabs the wood right next to his ear again and again with each word. “Behave!” he finishes, this time stabbing so close that Waylon feels a sudden, sharp pain from the tip of his right ear, and it sends his body into survival mode.

He flails and fights, throwing his body against the other man in an attempt to get out of the cage made by his larger form, by his arm on the other side of Waylon’s body. He ends up crying out like a wild, frightened animal, one hand coming up to clutch at the deep cut in his ear lobe and the other hand grabbing at Eddie’s homemade vest in desperation.

It’s damp - from blood, sweat, or something else, he can’t be sure of.

“Everyone’s watching us!” Eddie hisses out, his voice raw and unstable. “And you’re just ruining it!”

What these words of insanity could possibly mean is lost on Waylon. The knife is pressed to his throat, the cold metal strangely an odd relief from the stifling heat around him, and he closes his eyes when he feels it slide firmly over his skin, unable to move.

Is this how he goes? Head carved off by an insane man who believes he’s an adulterous bride?

Eddie’s other hand drifts up to rest on his cheek, his head tilted almost in adoration, like he hates having to kill another of his fiances, his “special one” in particular, though his face is a strict contrast to this caress, contorted with rage. “It’s like you want them to touch you. To soil your virtue. I would do anything for you...”

Waylon opens his eyes for a brief moment when the knife is slid back and forth two more times, so slow and teasing, feeling his skin start to split under the increasing pressure. When he closes his eyes again, a fat tear rolls down his cheek, the one in Eddie’s hand. It trails down the groom’s index finger and soaks into his glove.

“We could have had such a beautiful family together,” Eddie tells him, his voice strained and heartfelt.

When Waylon opens his eyes once more, he sees that Eddie is crying as well through his anger. His gaze is unfocused and wavering, like he’s looking right through his victim.

The pressure of the knife slices deeper into Waylon’s neck, and when he feels drops of blood start to roll down his collarbone, he knows it’s now or never.

“I love you!” he blurts out, forcing himself to meet the man’s eyes. He has to. He can’t die here. He won’t. Eddie freezes, staring hard at him now, thumb still rubbing absentmindedly at his cheek. The touch is far too rough to even seem like real affection. “Please! I still love you, I swear! I love you. I’m sorry. I love you.”

He keeps mumbling it, over and over, feeling more and more sick to his stomach with each false declaration, until the pressure of the knife on his throat is lifted by a shaky hand. ‘Spare me,’ he thinks, heavy guilt washing over his body for lying so horribly to this twisted man. ‘Forgive me.’

‘Lisa, forgive me.’

When the knife has been removed and his mind has been changed, Eddie less embraces him than he grabs Waylon by the shoulders and collapses to his knees, dragging the other down with him. Waylon grunts as his hurt leg is bent, squirming and trying to get comfortable in his new, awkward position with the other. His hand immediately wrestles the knife away from Eddie’s quaking fingers and throws it as far as he can behind his back.

“You’re lying. You wanted them to touch you!” the murderer growls out. His hands are firm on Waylon’s shoulders, but don’t move to hurt him anymore. “How can I trust you, after all you’ve done to hurt me? After how unfaithful you’ve been. To your own husband. You should die for what you’ve done.”

“You can! You can trust me, I love you, I swear.” Waylon spits out the words fast, hoping they’ll just stick somehow. He turns Eddie’s own trick that he used when talking to the asylum doctors against him and says exactly what he thinks the other wants to hear. “I won’t leave you again, I won’t. I was just afraid. I was afraid of love. But I know I was wrong now. I need you.”

There is a deafening silence through which Walyon is preparing himself to be attacked again, but eventually thick arms go around his shoulders and happen to do the exact opposite to him from what their calming intention is. Eddie leans so heavily against him that Waylon has to strain against the larger man to keep himself upright.

“Oh... My sweet darling,” Eddie moans, lazy and distracted. Waylon closes his eyes, his chest still heaving, as the groom’s hands slide down his shoulders to his arms, his grip heavy and loose, like he doesn’t have full control of his body. “My special dear. You do such awful things to my poor heart, do you know that? I’ll never hurt you again, I swear. You know I’ll-” A grunt interrupts his words, and he winces. “You know I’ll always love you... After the ceremony...”

He can’t look when Eddie grasps his face and tries to look him in the eyes. He can’t.

“Oh, I can already hear the wedding bells,” Eddie continues, pain coating his voice. He groans suddenly and hunches over again, and Waylon hangs on to his shoulder as he starts to slump towards the ground. The entire side of his abdomen is dark, dark red. “Our vows and- Ah...“

He’s dying. He’s dying, Walyon thinks.

“Everyone’s watching us...” Eddie whispers again, closing his eyes. Waylon is almost tempted to slap his cheek and force him back up, try to help him live a little bit longer for some reason beyond him, but he doesn’t. He lays Eddie down on the floor, on his back, one arm still around his shoulder, half cradled in his lap. “Undressing us with their eyes. They’ve always been watching... Always.”

At this moment, when he can no longer avoid meeting Eddie’s gaze, the murderer’s face is so anguished, his brows creased, a frown on his lips, dry tears on his scarred cheeks. He looks confused. Hurt and confused, and a little angry. Is he thinking of..?

“They’re... They’re not watching anymore,” Waylon tells him, surprising himself with his words. Somehow, in some part of his mind, he feels like he needs to say this. “He’s not watching you anymore. He can never do it to you again. Neither of them can. Okay?”

Eddie’s breath hitches at his words, and it’s an ugly sound. It’s a wet, desperate gasp that doesn’t sound convinced at all. It sounds woeful and despairing. It sounds afraid.

That awful sound echos in Waylon’s mind as Eddie closes his eyes.

“...Okay??” he asks again, desperate for a response. He never gets one.

It takes a while, but over time, Eddie just slowly stops breathing, and Waylon helplessly watches every moment of it.

He dies there, unfixed, unstable, and unable to accept what Waylon had read about happening to him when he was a child living with his father and uncle. He didn’t let the therapist at Mount Massive help, so how could Waylon ever hope to make any kind of impact, especially in the man’s final, dying moments. He couldn’t do anything, so why does it hurt then? Why does it feel so bad, seeing his face and hearing that final sob? He’s not a therapist. He’s not a doctor. But still...

Slowly, gently, Waylon eases the body down, retrieves his battered camera, and documents it. Just a short moment lingering on the body, the shot mostly focused on the face, before he presses the power button and turns it off.

He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t feel like laughing at all.

He stands for a while, silent and still in the explosive asylum, holding the light wound on his throat, staring at Eddie’s corpse, and wondering if that sick feeling inside will stick with him even after he’s left this place long behind.

Something tells him it will.

**Author's Note:**

> im sorry


End file.
